Key highlights

• Learn how to deploy OpenClaw 2.0 with one-click guided setup and reach a working Control UI.
• Discover how OpenClaw 2.0 tracks each Automation run and resumes missed work after a server restart.
• Know which server size and storage you need to run OpenClaw on a VPS around the clock.
• Explore the commands that check Gateway health, create verified backups and preview updates before you apply them.
• Learn how to trigger OpenClaw from n8n and deliver results to Slack, Teams, Telegram and other channels.

OpenClaw stops working when your laptop sleeps or your terminal session closes. To run it 24/7, host it on an always-on virtual private server (VPS), where OpenClaw 2.0 resumes missed Automation work after a restart.

A self-hosted setup also keeps your prompts, credentials and conversation history on a server you control. Prompts go only to the model provider you choose, or they stay on the server when you run local models.

The quickest route is Bluehost OpenClaw VPS Hosting, which installs OpenClaw in one click. You can also install it yourself on a server you already manage. This guide covers server requirements, both setup paths, the n8n connection and the monitoring, backup and update routine that keeps your agent running.

What are the server requirements for continuous OpenClaw operation?

Continuous OpenClaw operation needs steady central processing unit (CPU) and random-access memory (RAM) resources, because your agents keep working after you log off. How much you need depends on how many tasks run at once and whether models run through application programming interfaces (APIs) or locally. If your shared hosting environment has reached its limits, knowing when to upgrade to VPS helps you plan the move.

A VPS gives OpenClaw allocated resources and a disk separate from your laptop. OpenClaw keeps its state, such as sessions and agent data, in SQLite databases under ~/.openclaw, so storage speed can affect restarts and lookups.

NVMe vs SATA SSD storage for OpenClaw

Storage type decides how quickly OpenClaw reads and writes its state. This table compares Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) drives with Serial ATA (SATA) solid-state drives (SSDs) on the criteria that matter for an always-on agent.

Criteria	NVMe SSD	SATA SSD
Best for	AI agents, Docker and databases with frequent small reads and writes	General web hosting and lighter apps
Transfer speed and latency	Higher transfer speeds and lower latency than SATA SSDs	Standard SATA throughput
What it means for OpenClaw	Faster reads and writes for SQLite state and logs	Workable for light use

For an agent that writes run history and logs all day, NVMe storage gives you more headroom as concurrent writes grow. A SATA SSD stays workable for light use.

In VPSBenchmarks’ Best Value VPS ranking for May 2026, which weights performance by price, the Bluehost NVMe 4 Self-Managed VPS plan placed 2nd of 26 plans. It earned a price-weighted score of 82, with A price-weighted grades in web performance, performance stability and network performance. For you, that suggests the starting tier holds up well on performance per dollar.

Keep the scope of that result in mind. The test measured the VPS plan itself rather than OpenClaw, and VPSBenchmarks notes that it receives support from some of the providers it features.

How much RAM and CPU do you actually need?

The RAM and CPU you need depend on how many agent tasks run at once. Lightweight API integrations use fewer resources than heavy API chaining and multi-step reasoning flows.

OpenClaw VPS Hosting plans measure compute in virtual CPUs (vCPUs). An NVMe 4 plan with 2 vCPUs and 4 GB of RAM offers a solid starting point (currently $9.49/mo on a 24-month term, renewing at $11.99/mo). It fits one agent, a few channels and a handful of Automations.

You can connect OpenAI or Anthropic Claude with your own API keys. Local models through Ollama keep prompts on the server, so size RAM for the model you plan to run. Scale up to the NVMe 8 or NVMe 16 tiers as your agent fleet grows.

Note: Bluehost pricing was verified in October 2026 and may change. See current Bluehost plans and pricing.

Also read: Best VPS Size for OpenClaw: An Engineer’s Guide to Sizing AI Infrastructure

How do you set up OpenClaw for 24/7 operation?

The quickest way to run OpenClaw 24/7 is one-click guided setup on a VPS built for it. If you already manage a server, the manual install later in this section reaches the same result.

Deploy OpenClaw with one-click setup on Bluehost VPS

Bluehost OpenClaw VPS Hosting installs OpenClaw 2.0 (v2026.8.1, the Community edition) when your server is provisioned. These five steps take you through checkout to your first conversation.

1. Choose a plan: Pick NVMe 4 or larger, since NVMe 4 is the functional minimum for OpenClaw.
2. Select OpenClaw at checkout: In the Software section, open the Application tab, choose OpenClaw and select Confirm. The purchase steps for a VPS with OpenClaw walk through each screen.
3. Open the dashboard: In the Bluehost Portal, go to Hosting > My Plans and select Manage on your Self-Managed VPS package. Select Manage again to sign in to OpenClaw.
4. Finish guided setup: Reuse an existing subscription, API key or local model for your first conversation. You can connect OpenAI, Anthropic Claude or Ollama with your own keys.
5. Work from the rebuilt Control UI: Conversations, files, approvals, settings and live agent work sit in one browser workspace.

Because the server stays on, the Control UI stays reachable while your laptop is closed.

How OpenClaw 2.0 keeps work running through restarts

The core idea behind the OpenClaw 2.0 upgrade is persistence: your scheduled work and messages survive interruptions and pick up correctly afterward, instead of being lost or duplicated. That matters when you reboot for updates or when the Gateway, the OpenClaw service that connects your agent to its channels, restarts after an error. Four behaviors make this restart safety work in practice.

• Run history: Every Automation run records whether it fired, delivered, and completed.
• Resume after restart: Work missed during downtime resumes without re-running jobs that already finished.
• Persistent messages: Accepted messages survive managed restarts; on channels such as Telegram, retries are limited to sends proven not to have started.
• Connection state: Each channel reports its state as usable, recovering or blocked.

These behaviors work best on a host that restarts predictably and stays online, exactly what a VPS provides.

Install OpenClaw manually on a server you manage

A process you start in a terminal stops when that session closes, so a manual install needs a supervised service. Use these steps as background if you already run your own Ubuntu or Debian server.

Prepare the server: Create a non-root user with sudo rights, since the docs treat running the Gateway as root as unsafe, then apply updates.

sudo adduser openclaw 
sudo usermod -aG sudo openclaw 
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Allow SSH through the firewall: Open Secure Shell (SSH) in Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW) and leave port 18789 closed, because the Gateway listens on loopback.

sudo ufw allow 22 sudo ufw enable

Run the official installer: Sign in as the new user and run the script from the OpenClaw install documentation, which adds Node.js 24 if it’s missing.

curl -fsSL https://openclaw.ai/install.sh | bash

Run it as a service: The Gateway runbook unit restarts 5 seconds after a failure, pauses on config errors (exit code 78) and survives logout with lingering.

openclaw gateway install systemctl --user enable --now openclaw-gateway.service sudo loginctl enable-linger $(whoami)

Verify and connect: Confirm the Gateway is healthy, then tunnel in from your computer, open http://127.0.0.1:18789/ and sign in with your Gateway token or password.

openclaw gateway status openclaw health curl -fsS http://127.0.0.1:18789/healthz 
# On your own computer: ssh -N -L 18789:127.0.0.1:18789 openclaw@[server-ip] 

To confirm lingering works, reboot once, reconnect and rerun the status check.

sudo reboot # After you reconnect: openclaw gateway status

Using Docker instead? The repository’s Compose file restarts the container with restart: unless-stopped, and published ports bypass UFW, so follow our OpenClaw hosting guide for Docker.

How do you connect OpenClaw with n8n for workflow automation?

You connect them by having n8n send a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) POST request to OpenClaw’s inbound webhook, which starts an agent run. n8n watches for new emails, form submissions and webhooks, while OpenClaw handles the reasoning and the agent’s actions.

You can run n8n on the same server or on Bluehost n8n Hosting. Use a token dedicated to hooks and keep it separate from your Gateway token, as the OpenClaw inbound webhook documentation recommends. Run the first three steps on the server’s terminal and the last one in the n8n editor.

Enable hooks: Add a hooks block to your OpenClaw config with a long random token.hooks:

{ enabled: true, token: "[long-random-hook-token]", path: "/hooks", allowedAgentIds: ["main"], allowRequestSessionKey: false, }

Validate and restart: Check the config, then restart the Gateway to load it.

openclaw config validate openclaw gateway restart

Send a test request: Run this smoke test from the server with your hook token in place of the placeholder.

curl --include http://127.0.0.1:18789/hooks/agent \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer [long-random-hook-token]' \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -H 'Idempotency-Key: webhook-smoke-001' \ --data '{"message":"Summarize this test event: the sample import completed.","name":"Webhook smoke test","agentId":"main","deliver":false}'

Add the n8n HTTP Request node: Set the method to POST, turn on Send Headers and send the body as JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). You can also use Import cURL to paste the test command.

A 200 response with { "ok": true, "runId": ... } means OpenClaw admitted the run, which may still be in progress. A 401 points to the hook token, and a 404 means hooks are disabled or the path is wrong.

The webhook response carries no model output, so set deliver with a channel and to value to send results to people. One agent can deliver to Slack, Discord, Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal, Microsoft Teams and text messages (SMS/MMS) through Twilio. Each channel reports its connection state as usable, recovering or blocked.

If n8n runs on the same host, it can call 127.0.0.1 directly. If it runs in a container or on another server, reach the Gateway through a Tailscale private network (tailnet) or a trusted HTTP Secure (HTTPS) reverse proxy. Event data moves between services you host, and prompts go only to the model provider you choose unless you run local models.

How do you monitor and maintain your AI infrastructure?

Artificial intelligence (AI) agents load a server differently from websites, with bursts when several agents reason at once. Watch peak usage, check health after each change and keep backups current so a restart or update stays routine.

Check Gateway and channel health

OpenClaw’s status commands report Gateway, channel and backup state from the server’s terminal. Use --deep for a fuller probe and follow the logs while you test a change.

openclaw status
openclaw status --deep
openclaw health
openclaw logs --follow

For external checks, /healthz reports whether the Gateway is live. The /readyz endpoint adds channel-aware readiness, which helps when a channel drops while the Gateway stays up.

Watch CPU and memory under peak load

Use htop to watch CPU and memory in real time, especially during multi-step reasoning flows. Sudden memory spikes can point to inefficient prompt chains or memory leaks.

htop

Pro tip: Base your alerts on peak traffic and concurrent agent execution, since averages hide the moments that strain a server. A server can look fine on average and struggle during simultaneous requests.

Set an alert for memory use above 80 percent as a starting threshold. If the server keeps hitting out-of-memory (OOM) kills, add memory, reduce concurrency or set a MemoryMax= limit on the service. When you update, OpenClaw 2.0’s update paths inspect the install before replacing it and stop unsafe candidates.

Back up and update OpenClaw safely

Create a verified backup before significant updates, following the OpenClaw backup guide. Don’t copy live database files such as .sqlite, -wal or -shm files; use the backup command instead.

openclaw backup create --output ~/Backups/openclaw --verify

Backup archives contain credentials, so store them encrypted. You can schedule backups with openclaw backup enable, and openclaw status shows the newest backup attempt.

openclaw update --dry-run
openclaw update
openclaw doctor
openclaw health

The dry run previews the update without changing state. Managed update runs restart and verify the Gateway, and after a manual update, openclaw doctor and openclaw health confirm the result.

Keep approvals and credentials scoped

Shared instances work best when access stays attached to the work that earned it. OpenClaw 2.0 scopes access in three ways, and a built-in audit checks your settings.

• Scoped approvals: Each approval is bound to the exact request, command, session and person.
• Device retirement: Removing or re-pairing a device retires its old access.
• Protected credentials: Credentials are delivered without being exposed in model-visible text.

Run the security audit after config changes or before you expose a network surface. The command also accepts --deep and --fix.

openclaw security audit

Why choose Bluehost for OpenClaw hosting?

Bluehost OpenClaw VPS Hosting gives you a self-managed VPS with OpenClaw 2.0 installed in one click, plus root access, Docker support and persistent NVMe storage. Those three pieces match what OpenClaw’s plugins, updates and saved state depend on.

Your data, workflows and agents stay on a server you control. That reduces your reliance on software as a service (SaaS) AI tools and gives your team one private place to run its agents.

What OpenClaw VPS Hosting includes

Each plan pairs the OpenClaw 2.0 install with the server-level access a self-managed setup needs. These are the parts that matter most for 24/7 operation.

• One-click OpenClaw 2.0: The install deploys v2026.8.1, the Community edition, and root access lets you control later updates.
• Root access and Docker support: Install and roll back plugins, skills and Model Context Protocol (MCP) connectors, or use OpenClaw’s documented Docker path.
• Persistent NVMe storage and DDR5 RAM: Sessions, run history and configuration survive reboots.
• Reusable skills: Turn a repeated manual process into a skill your agent can call in conversation.
• Your data on your server: Prompts and credentials stay on infrastructure you control.
• Room to grow: Scale CPU, RAM and storage as your needs grow without changing environments.
• Reliable foundation: Each plan includes distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection and unmetered bandwidth, subject to our Terms of Service.

How it looks in practice

It’s 2 a.m. and your host reboots for a routine patch. A nightly report job was mid-run when it happened. On restart, OpenClaw checks its run history, sees the job never completed, and picks it back up instead of skipping it or firing it twice.

Your Docker containers come back online on their own, the skill your team built last month is still installed, and the agent resumes the conversation queue right where it left off. From your side, nothing looks broken. You just see a clean log entry the next morning instead of a gap.

Compare the three OpenClaw tiers side by side before you pick a term. The table lists specs, intro prices and renewal rates on a 24-month term.

Plan	vCPU	RAM	NVMe storage	Intro price (24-month term)	Renews at	Fits
NVMe 4	2	4 GB DDR5	100 GB	$9.49/mo	$11.99/mo	Docker, AI agents and growing applications
NVMe 8	4	8 GB DDR5	200 GB	$12.99/mo	$28.99/mo	Multi-container production and heavy traffic
NVMe 16	8	16 GB DDR5	450 GB	$25.99/mo	$49.99/mo	Heavy AI workloads, large databases and enterprise stacks

Start on NVMe 4 for one agent and a few channels, then move up as concurrency grows. Compare renewal rates as well as intro prices before you choose a term.

Note: “Self-Managed VPS does NOT include 24/7 expert human support, only infrastructure-level support.”

See the VPS scope of support for details on what our team covers.

Build an owned AI + automation stack

OpenClaw 2.0 gives admins one place to extend the agent and roll changes back. Pair it with n8n, and you have an automation and AI stack that runs on your own server.

• One admin hub: Browse, install, enable, disable and roll back plugins, ClawHub skills and vetted MCP connectors. A failed install returns to a retryable state.
• Skill lifecycle: Create, validate, install and invoke reusable skills mid-conversation.
• Skill Workshop: Review proposed skill changes before they apply.
• Pair with n8n: n8n handles triggers while OpenClaw reasons and acts, using the webhook setup above.

Final thoughts

An always-on VPS plus OpenClaw 2.0’s restart-safe Automations keeps your agent working while you’re offline. Your next step is to finish guided setup, then schedule verified backups before you add more channels.

Self-hosting keeps your prompts, credentials and agent history in your hands as your team adds channels and Automations. OpenClaw VPS Hosting starts you at that guided setup with OpenClaw 2.0 already installed. Choose an OpenClaw VPS Hosting plan

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